<![CDATA[FaceSay™ - Social Skills Games that Work! - Blog]]>Thu, 17 May 2012 01:40:08 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[FaceSay fMRI study planned at UAB/CIRC]]>Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:14:51 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2011/12/facesay-fmri-study-planned-at-uabcirc.htmlFaceSay's original development was partially funded by a grant to Dr. Maria Hopkins at the University of Alabama by the Civitan group's research arm, CIRC.  Now in it's 20th year, CIRC has again funded a study of FaceSay.  This grant was awarded to Lauren Libero for an fMRI study of FaceSay, under Dr. Rajesh Kana.  It's planned for next year.

"Researchers will study brain activity of the children before, during and after they are engaged in the game to see if their brains are being re-wired"

Read More ]]><![CDATA[Impressive number of "Social Attention" studies at IMFAR]]>Mon, 16 May 2011 15:25:15 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2011/05/impressive-number-of-social-attention-studies-at-imfar.htmlIt seemed that one quarter, probably more, of the hundreds of studies presented at IMFAR this year touched on Social Attention and Social Skills and Behaviors.  There were rows of posters on studies that measured Joint Attention, Emotion Recognition, Face Recognition, or more generally Face Processing and Visual Perception (browse the 700 page IMFAR Abstracts ), often in connection with measures of Social Interactions or Social Competence.  It was very interesting and a great fit with FaceSay's focus on attention to the face and particularly the area around the eyes.   ]]><![CDATA[Presenting Results of 2010 FaceSay RCT at IMFAR in May]]>Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:18:41 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2011/04/presenting-results-of-2010-rct-at-imfar-in-may.htmlAs part of the Technology Demo at IMFAR in May, I'll be presenting "Results of An RCT of FaceSay In Public Elementary Schools", Friday 8am-1pm, poster #19 in the Elizabeth room. If you are here, please come buy for a demo.

Alex from Wrong planet is here again this year.  Tons of great posters on visual attention to Faces, Social Skills interventions, outcome measures.  Pretty amazing. ]]><![CDATA[Small FaceSay Study has started in NJ School District]]>Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:45:33 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2011/02/small-facesay-study-has-started-in-nj-school-district.htmlA small pilot study, comparing emotion recognition outcomes between FaceSay and MindReading has started in a school district in New Jersey.  I animated one of the teachers as the main character in the Amazing Gazing game.  The students seem to be interested :-). ]]><![CDATA[Collaborating on FaceSay studies with Peter Mundy]]>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:32:03 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2011/02/collaborating-on-facesay-studies-with-peter-mundy.htmlI've begun a promising collaboration with Peter Mundy, the Director of Educational Research at UC Davis Mind Institue and Bill Jarrold, a postdoc who is working with Peter on Virtual Reality applications.  Peter is including FaceSay in several of his proposed studies, and we have a few more studies on the drawing board.]]><![CDATA[FaceSay Poster Presentation at IMFAR 2010]]>Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:28:14 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2010/04/facesay-poster-presentation-at-imfar.htmlI'll be demoing FaceSay and presenting the results from the 2007 FaceSay RCT at IMFAR 2010 in Philadelphia, as part of the Innovative Technologies Demo session, sponsored by Autism Speaks.  Philadelphia Marriott, in Franklin Hall B Level 4, Friday, May 21, 2010, 8:00AM]]><![CDATA[Three Free ReacTickles™ with FaceSay]]>Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:31:22 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2009/12/three-free-reactickles-with-facesay.htmlWith FaceSay version 1.2.1.9, three fun ReacTickles are now included.  After every 10 points, the students can choose which ReacTickle (formerly known as reactivecolours) to play.  The ReacTickles are also installed as a free screen saver.
]]><![CDATA[Reading Emotions Might Improve Imitation]]>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:43:54 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2009/07/reading-emotions-might-improve-imitation.htmlIn an interesting 2008 study, Vivanti and Rogers ruled out both motor impairment and following the task as reasons why children with autism have difficulty in an imitation task.  One finding that could be important is that the study participants with autism spent less time looking at the face.  This leads to the interesting idea that learning to better read emotions, an important component of social interactions,  might also improve imitation, which is another key component of social interactions:

“It could be that if people with autism could be better at reading emotion they might naturally start to imitate their models the way like other people do.”
—Sally Rogers, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences

]]><![CDATA[Measuring Attention to Eyes in Naturalistic Interactions]]>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:17:22 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2009/07/measuring-attention-to-eyes-in-naturalistic-interactions.htmlWe can now quantitatively test our hypothesis that FaceSay increases attention to the area around the eyes in interactions with other people!  After months of pilot testing, Researchers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham recently placed an order for a an eye tracking system that is ideal for unobtrusively measuring where the study participant is looking when interacting with another person.   Attention to the eyes - which does not necessarily equate to eye contact - is thought to be important for reading emotions and possibly imitation, both of which are key components of social interactions.

]]><![CDATA[FaceSay Poster Presentation at IMFAR in Chicago]]>Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:14:54 -0800http://www.facesay.com/1/post/2009/02/facesay-poster-presentation-at-imfar-in-chicago.htmlI will be presenting a technology demo/poster presentation at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Chicago in May.  "FaceSay - Social Skills Games That Work" is scheduled for Friday, May  8, 2009, 9:00 AM
At the Chicago Hilton, in the Boulevard room.

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